1963 South Vietnamese coup

The 1963 South Vietnamese coup occurred on 1-2 November 1963 when the South Vietnamese ARVN military violently ousted President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother, head of security Ngo Dinh Nhu, from power in a CIA-backed coup. The Ngo brothers were captured and executed, bringing an end to their presidential dictatorship and ushering in a military junta.

South Vietnam had been plunged into a political and religious crisis due to the Catholic president Diem's persecution of the country's Buddhist majority, which resulted in the "Buddhist crisis" of May-November 1963. In response to Diem's falling popularity, his stubbornness, and his autocratic ruling style, President John F. Kennedy threatened to cut off US aid if he continued to persecute the Buddhists. In August, a faction of the military, fearing the loss of US aid in the struggle against the Viet Cong insurgency, approached the US government with a plan for a coup and asked for its blessing. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Hilsman, with Kennedy's permission, wired the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and instructed him to deliver an ultimatum to the government: either Diem would dismiss his brother as security chief (he and his wife Madame Nhu were blamed for the repression), or the US would support his removal from power. Ultimately, Kennedy, whose cabinet opposed supporting the coup, informed the coup plotters that, while the US would not openly support the coup, the Kennedy administration would not oppose it. The generals decided to go ahead with their coup, and local CIA liaison Lucien Conein provided funds to the generals' cause.

On 1 November 1963, the pro-coup ARVN troops seized government installations in Saigon after brief street fighting, capturing many unprepared loyalist leaders with light casualties. Diem and Nhu fled to a Catholic church, where they found temporary sanctuary. The next day, they were persuaded to surrender in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Both of them boarded the rear of an APC, where they were both shot shortly after getting in; Madame Nhu, Nhu's wife, survived the coup, as she was on a goodwill tour of the United States at the time. A Military Revolutionary Council took power, released the country's political prisoners, and convinced the US to resume military aid. Virtually the entire country celebrated Diem's downfall, as he had already lost his support in rural areas due to the Strategic Hamlet Program, and he had also lost urban support due to the Buddhist crisis and his brutal repression of political and religious dissidents. Duong Van Minh then emerged as the leader of a military junta which would be run by a revolving door of leaders until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.